Re: Thomas Pynchon Predicted the Pandemic in 'Gravity's Rainbow.’ Now Aren't You Sorry You Didn't Read It?

[Erik T. Burns]

You never did the Corona Kid.

On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 12:47 PM Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com> wrote:

> this is a good essay. I was kind of irked LeClair went to get a pull quote
> from, of all things, "The Matrix," to pin down this "humans are the virus"
> idea; TRP's version of it was plenty (and much less hacky than the Matrix
> bit, or even the current & ridiculous "maybe we are the virus" meme.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 12:22 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This imaginatively stretches the reading wonderfully, but it is so good. I
>> love all the smart readings which take it away from the literal Blitz and
>> rocket, which fetish pervades too many, I pick a fight with by declaring.
>> (I'm done, you win).
>>
>> So alive and in touch with reality now and the reality of *Gravity's
>> Rainbow*.(isn't the section quoted, which seldom is, GREAT?) All those
>> tentacles and tendrils involved.
>>
>> LcClair has lived with this book from the beginning and makes the overall
>> case again why great books "touch bottom" so well that they are always
>> true. There it stands intertwined with Moby Dick,
>> the two greatest American novels of their centuries, I say.
>>
>> My vote for the best critical essay of our times since.....Pynchon wrote
>> the intro to the reissue of* 1984*? (written for effect and as if I know
>> more than a few)
>>
>>
>> https://www.thedailybeast.com/thomas-pynchon-predicted-the-pandemic-in-gravitys-rainbow-now-arent-you-sorry-you-didnt-read-it
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>